Why I stopped using ad blockers, and started appreciating unique or instructional content
As a self taught Linux user and a programmer, I’m well accustomed to reading tutorials and how-tos on the internet. I’ve spent countless hours reading and applying information shared graciously by my peers. Now though, as a blogger myself, I’ve come to appreciate the information and the time it takes share that information more.
Granted I don’t want to pay for every tip or tutorial I have read, and I can’t imagine anyone who would. But my teachers deserve to at least be compensated for their time and their investments. How can that be possible if I don’t want to pay money to them? A rhetorical question for sure.
Advertisers spent more than $21 billion in online advertising in 2007, and experts expect that to more than double by 2011. That is one huge pie, and many of the bloggers that write those tutorials and how-tos are only trying to get a small piece of that pie.
One of the early success stories of the Firefox add-ons was Adblock. When coupled with the Filterset.G updater, a user would rarely see a peep of online advertising. While agree that black-hat and pop-up advertising is annoying, mainstream online advertising has come a long way. Ads are usually based on the content you are reading, and are usually tucked nicely in to their own real estate. I think we are at a point now to where we can disable those ad blockers, and appreciate the sea of knowledge that is so selflessly shared with us.
I was reading an article last week on nutrition, and I saw an advertisement for a company that sold some of the products I was interested in. By looking at that ad that was not bothering me at all, or affecting my ability to read the free content, I was able return the favor to the author. And it didn’t cost me a dime.
I now browse the internet without the use of an ad blocker, and I urge users who appreciate the ability to learn and share information so freely to do the same. Sure there are some sites that force annoying pop-ups on you, but the good thing about the internet is that I don’t have to visit that site again. I can choose to visit a site with more constructive advertising practices.
To all you authors and writers who have taught me so much, here is to you. If I can continue to return the favor by being allowing myself to be exposed to your advertising, I will gladly do so.
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February 24th, 2008
dear ken mitchell
you are so off of my buddy list and anyone else sympathetic to advertisers will be removed also. we are not at the point where we can disable adblockers. quite contrary, we need more adblockers. you show me an honest, unbiased, straight-forward, user-friendly, non-deceptive advertisement and i’ll show you a lying, deceptive, fraudulant, biased, hidden agenda, theiving, obnoxious company behind the advertisement. i am getting so sick and tired of being treated as nothing but a commodity by lame so called content publishers. i have not only added many ad servers to my block list but i’ve also started to add the stupid content publishers websites to my hosts file just for spite so that i won’t ever see their stinking website again. i really don’t care about the content if it comes with obnoxious ads. tech.blorge.com is very close to being added to my hosts file because of this article. a simple edit of 127.0.0.1 tech.blorge.com is all it takes.
advertisers need to humble themselves and be less sensational and less obnoxious and less aggressive before they’ll be allowed on my computer.
thank you.
February 24th, 2008
I completely understand your point, but I will continue to use my ad blocker. I get annoyed quickly with sites that spam you with pop-ups.
February 24th, 2008
It matters not whether you see the adds on some site, the creator of it makes money on it whether you see it or not.
If I had a nickel for every add I’ve seen on-line, I would be a millionaire.
We need add blockers now MORE than we ever did, I would be SWAMPED with adds and pop-ups if I browsed without blockers!
C@RL
February 24th, 2008
Dear Smerball,
As it happens we do have writers (one in particular, I’ll let you guess who that might be), who support your position 110%.
Ken was simply providing his opinion, as you’ve done. THAT is what BLORGE is about – sharing ideas, and sometimes agreeing to disagree.
All readers are welcome at TECH.BLORGE.com whether they use ad blockers or not. Our primary mission isn’t to serve ads, it’s to inform, keep people up to date with news, and to stimulate discussion.
Yes of course we run ads to offset the expenses of paying people to write, but as I’ve said. that’s NOT WHY we do what we do.
Hope that gives you an idea of where we’re coming from.
All the best
John
February 25th, 2008
Two main points here:
a) Publishers can block adblock if they want to.
b) Users can whitelist sites they want to see advertising on.
(a) is too evil and (b) is too rare. If you want to really reward somebody for teaching you something, paypal them a few dollars. That’s not a lot to you and a lot more than they’d get from advertising clicks.
Re Carl:
That’s just not true. If the advertising provider is good at anything, they know when browsers actually load up adverts. Plus, most advertising for lower-end publishers, bloggers, etc is CPC (cost per click) or CPA (cost per action) and only pays out on clicks or purchases, respectively.
February 25th, 2008
Oli, you are right. Publishers don’t get paid when an ad is blocked.
Also, adblockers don’t stop popups. Popup blockers stop popups. Adblockers would only stop the content in the popup from appearing.
As far as donating to every author I get useful information from goes, do you realize how many useful articles I read a day?
February 29th, 2008
I place adblock on every pc I build.